The Allegory of Divine Providence,
a masterpiece of trompe l'oeil
art, was created by Pietro da Cortona to decorate the large ceiling
of the grand salon of the palatial home of the Barberini family, in Rome.
In completing this prestigious commission - the Barberini clan was headed
by Maffeo Barberini, then Pope Urban VIII - Cortona was following in the
footsteps of the High Renaissance master Correggio
(1489-1534), whose own masterpiece - the Assumption
of the Virgin in Parma Cathedral (1526-30) - had astounded quadraturisti
of the cinquecento. There was a key difference however between
the two works: The Assumption was a work of Christian
art, while The Allegory was a secular celebration of the pope's
life and family. Cortona, who was already known to the Barberini family
as a result of his Portrait of Pope Urban VIII (1627, Capitoline
Museums, Rome), was given the commission by Francesco Barberini, nephew
of Urban VIII. He began the work in 1633 and was almost finished in 1637,
when he was called away to Florence, to paint two murals for Ferdinand
II de' Medici in the Pitti Palace. Returning to Rome, he completed the
Barberini project in 1639. The Allegory of Divine Providence was
seen as a highpoint of Baroque
painting, and one of the greatest expressions of di sotto in sumural painting in Rome. It exerted
a significant influence on later quadraturisti, including the renowned
Andrea Pozzo (1642-1709),
creator of the immortal Apotheosis
of St Ignatius (1688-94), in the Jesuit Church of Sant'Ignazio,
Campus Martius, Rome.

Analysis of The
Allegory of Divine Providence by Pietro da Cortona

This quadratura
painting is the grandest secular fresco of the Roman High Baroque,
ordered by the greatest pope of the age, Urban VIII (reigned 1623-44).
Cortona's scheme marks the apogee of papal power and display. During the
Thirty Years' War (1618-48), the papacy was able to maintain the appearance
of a great power by exploiting the divisions in Europe, but the end of
the war saw the emergence of France as the dominant European force. It
is indicative of that great change that Louis XIV (reigned 1643-1715)
could call Bernini (1598-1680),
the papal architect and sculptor, to Paris in 1665-66. Pope Alexander
VII (reigned 1655-67) had to acquiesce in something his predecessor would
have forbidden.

Pietro da Cortona was apprenticed to an
undistinguished Florentine painter with whom he travelled to Rome in about
1612. Cortona's great chance came when he attracted the attention of Marcello
and Giulio Sacchetti, rich Florentine brothers who had also moved to Rome.The
Sacchetti were friends of Urban VIII, formerly Cardinal Maffeo Barberini
(a fellow-Tuscan) and it was through them that the artist gained the patronage
of the pope.

Cortona's mythological
painting decorates the guardroom (Sala dei palafrenieri), or
Gran Salon, which was the central public reception room of the Barberini
Palace, designed by Carlo Maderno (1556-1629) with the assistance of Bernini,
and Francesco Borromini
(1599-1667). Each family elected to the papacy took advantage of its good
fortune to erect a palace for its secular heirs. (In 1672, Cardinal Altieri
was elected Clement X. He was in his eighties so work on the new Palazzo
Altieri went on night and day in case the pope died before its completion!)

Popes are elected, thus God could intervene
to fulfil his plans, and hence the papal signature: Divina Providentia
Pontifex Maximus ("Supreme Pontiff by Divine Providence"). Cardinal
Barberini enjoyed a "heavenly sign" foretelling his election
- a swarm of bees (the family coat of arms) alighted on the wall of his
conclave cell. A reference to this forms part of the central section of
the decoration where Divine Providence, seated on clouds (with Time and
the Fates beneath her), commands a personification of Rome to crown the
Barberini arms. At the bottom is Minerva, goddess of Wisdom, overthrowing
the Giants who are seen hurled down by those mountains they had amassed
in order to challenge Heaven. Here is expressed the defence of ecclesiastical
things. The virtues of Barberini rule were emphasized through other mythologies
and personifications in the rest of the ceiling.

Cortona's ceiling is coved, as is the Farnese
Gallery which Annibale
Carracci (1560-1609) - leader of the Bolognese
school - had decorated in the 1590s - see: Farnese
Gallery frescoes (1597-1608). Like Annibale's scheme and the Genesis
fresco (1508-12) by Michelangelo
on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Cortona's masterpiece includes a
great painted cornice. This allowed him to compartmentalize various scenes.
It also formed a backdrop in front of which many of Cortona's figures
(including Minerva and the Giants) were represented in dynamic poses on
a large scale at the front of the picture-plane. However, Divine Providence
is more remotely shown high above, foreshortened in the central sky. The
Barberini Gran Salone, unlike Annibale's Farnese Gallery, is two stories
in height. This enabled Cortona to give his ceiling an "ideal"
station point from which to be viewed. This, together with the rich, Venetian
colour and the weighty, powerful
figures, gives the ceiling an epic grandeur and immediacy of impact, despite
its episodic character.

The ceiling is incredibly rich in details,
especially at the corners, where there are simulated bronze reliefs of
scenes representing the Cardinal Virtues (flanking the Minerva scene are
Mucius Scaevola putting his hand in the fire, for Fortitude; and
Scipio sending back untarnished to her Saguntine spouse the young maid
he had captured as his booty, for Temperance; Prudence and
Justice are opposite) and a profusion of mermen, nymphs, garlands,
and bucrania (ox skulls), usually executed in stucco but here shown illusionistically.
Cortona had assiduously studied ancient Roman
sculpture and Roman architecture,
and had a large library for reference. He even paid tribute to the High
Renaissance painter Raphael in
the central figure of Divine Providence, as her pose is taken directly
from one of Raphael's Sibyls, a fresco of 1514 in the Chigi Chapel in
Santa Maria della Pace in Rome.

Acclaimed as one of the best
Baroque paintings of the 17th century, Cortona's Allegory of Divine
Providence combines several traditions of illusionistic ceiling painting,
borrowed in part from earlier masters including Correggio, Annibale Carracci,
Paolo Veronese (1528-88)
and others. Today of course, the idea of creating a visual memorial to
a profligate and corrupt papal family based on a range of divine virtues,
seems archaic and dishonest. At the time it was perfectly normal.